HOW AUTODESK SIMULATION MOLDFLOW ADD VALUE TO YOUR MOLD DESIGNS???
 
 
Mold building in India is a very challenging business. Two of the major challenges are offshore competition and molders' growing demands for early design involvement. One solution to combat these challenges is Autodesk Simulation Moldflow. It can help mold builders stay competitive, enhance efficiencies, meet customer expectations and create more business opportunities. Following are four main benefits of today’s Autodesk Moldflow simulation tools.

1. A 3D tool which improves prediction of melt filling and air venting behavior. Mold failures during tool trials can cause a lack of confidence in a mold builder's reputation as well as lost revenue. Plastics flow behavior involves a combination of flow, pressure, cooling and heat. When you alter either of the parameter combinations the molding behavior changes drastically.

Autodesk Simulation Moldflow now provides a 3D-solver-based, scientific approach to determine the proper gating strategy and venting arrangement based on the predicted melt front. In facilitating such features, flow analysis predicts the required injection pressure and further estimates the required press size range.

2. The ability to evaluate different cooling arrangements can deliver more accurate cycle time estimation. Cycle time is always critical to OEMs and molders for meeting expected productivity levels. Without simulation, cycle time is estimated based on thickness distribution or past experience with similar part geometries. However, this estimation does not take into account cooling time for hot spots/undercuts or the potential cooling circuit efficiency.

With Autodesk Simulation Moldflow software, it's easy to evaluate different cooling arrangements for getting an output of accurate cycle time based on the whole system, efficiency of each cooling loop, adequate cooling channel size and plastic frozen percentage.

3. Integration with 3D CAD/CAM can boost efficiency. Many mold designers design molds only in their familiar CAD/CAM software and outsource the molding simulation, and this requires massive communication efforts. The integration of Autodesk Simulation Moldflow with CAD/CAM streamlines the iterative mold design analysis process and shortens the development cycle significantly

4. The simulation can facilitate proactive communication, which can assure a successful toollaunch. Many common molding problems are caused by factors other than mold design. Mold builders involvement has not been significantwith other verticals in the product development chain like part designer, materialsuppliers, etc. Communication of mold builders with these people only initiate once a problems during the trial occurs. The need for successful mold builder is to be very proactive; even before they start cutting the steel.

With the help of Autodesk Simulation Moldflow they can illustrate the potential problems and this enables the team to address issues/problems before production with appropriate part or mold design changes.

We believe a Mold designed without using a mold filling tool cannot be called a good design. Autodesk Simulation Moldflow tools can help mold builders understand mold filling behavior in a much better manner and minimize lead times in their engineering process. Implementing simulation technology in-house can help mold builders remain competitive as well.